Скачать или смотреть +4:3 Lawsuit accuses Indian PM of role in 2002 violence

(26 Sep 2014) A federal court in New York has summoned India's prime minister to respond to a lawsuit accusing him of human rights abuses, casting a shadow over the Indian leader's first trip to the US on Friday as head of government.
The lawsuit against Narendra Modi stems from long-standing allegations that he didn't do enough to stop devastating religious riots in his home state of Gujarat in 2002, when he served as chief minister there.
A newly formed human rights group, the American Justice Center, filed the suit on Thursday in Manhattan federal court on behalf of two unnamed survivors of the violence.
The plaintiffs are seeking monetary and punitive damages and a judgement that Modi's conduct amounted to genocide when he was chief minister of Gujarat.
"We wanted to raise this awareness to the Americans and the American values - that the human rights violators, you cannot host them, you cannot trade business with them, because this is not an American value," said Gurpatwant Pannun, the Legal Adviser for the American Justice Center in a briefing.
But the case is unlikely to have any significant impact on Modi's visit.
A senior Obama administration official said that as a general legal principle, sitting heads of government enjoy immunity from suits in American courts while in the United States.
They also enjoy "personal inviolability," which means they cannot be personally handed or delivered papers to begin the process of a lawsuit.
The official, who was not authorised to comment publicly about the issue, requested anonymity.
Although he won the election decisively on promises of economic growth, Modi remains a divisive figure in the country of 1.2 billion people, in part, because of the Gujarat riots.
As chief minister of Gujarat state, he was in charge in 2002 when Hindu mobs rampaged through Muslim neighbourhoods, towns and villages.
The riots erupted after a fire killed 60 passengers on a train packed with Hindu pilgrims.
More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed.
It was some of the worst religious violence India has seen since its independence from Britain in 1947.


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